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President Barack Obama taps James Comey for FBI director

By Nedra Pickler Associated Press

Posted:
06/21/2013 09:57:54 PM MDT

Updated:
06/21/2013 11:36:29 PM MDT

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President Barack Obama smiles as he announces the nomination of James Comey, left, a senior Justice Department official under President George W. Bush, to replace Robert Mueller as FBI director, Friday, June 21, 2013, in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

WASHINGTON -- As the FBI grapples with scrutiny over government surveillance, President Barack Obama on Friday moved to turn the agency over to James Comey, a top Bush administration lawyer best known for defiantly refusing to go along with White House demands on warrantless wiretapping nearly a decade ago.

Obama cited Comey's "fierce independence and deep integrity" as he nominated him to replace outgoing FBI Director Robert Mueller.

Mueller has led the agency for 12 years, longer than any previous director except J. Edgar Hoover, after Obama asked him to stay on beyond his initial 10-year term at a time of global threats. Mueller had moved into the director's office just the week before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and Obama applauded him during a Rose Garden ceremony for leading "one of the biggest transformations of the FBI in history to make sure that nothing like that ever happens again."

But Mueller is leaving as agency of 36,000 employees faces new challenges surrounding its intelligence gathering and criminal investigations. The bureau has parried questions in recent weeks over media leak probes; the Boston Marathon bombings; the attack at Benghazi, Libya, that killed four Americans; vast government surveillance programs into phone records and online communications; and a criminal probe into the former National Security Agency contractor who revealed those programs to the media.

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And just this week, Mueller revealed the FBI uses drones for domestic surveillance and said the privacy implications of such operations are worthy of debate.

"This work of striking a balance between our security but also making sure we're maintaining fidelity to those values that we cherish is a constant mission," Obama said.

It's a balance that Comey prominently wrestled with during his time as the No. 2 in Bush's Justice Department, dramatically illustrated by his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in May 2007 as he recounted a remarkable hospital room standoff with senior White House aides at the bedside of Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Comey told the committee that the showdown on March 10, 2004, was "probably the most difficult night of my professional life." But he said it ultimately resulted in President George W. Bush authorizing him to make changes to an anti-terror program to eavesdrop on domestic telephone calls and e-mail messages without a court warrant.

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